How does one judge dropping the ball?

In my case, they certainly made a game I have no drive to play. Coworkers say the same thing: after a while, they were just going through the motions, rather than having fun.

It wasn't Bethesda that dropped the ball, it was Todd Howard. It was Todd Howard that removed Spellmaking because it was too "spreadsheety". I was Todd Howard who removed Attributes and Bithsigns so you can "be what you play" or "play what you are" or whatever stupid slogan he came up with.

The basic design attributes of Oblivion and Morrowind that are missing in Skyrim are the parts that made an Elder Scrolls game have longevity past the first playthough. In the end, it is his fault... he's the director... his direction for TES is hopefully a dead end. He should be removed from being the director of Skyrim's DLC so that somebody can undo his mess, because right now Skyrim has no legs for the long haul between entries to the series.



That's another way to put, Skyrim is not fun.

No way. They did amazing.

Cheers

sequels improve on things within the series this is TES V not just Skyrim.

That's correct.
Yet every new release of a TES game (other than Daggerfall) has people complaining about things changed and/or removed from the previous game.

So again...Syrim is not a remake so nobody should have expected Skyrim to have the same skills, system, options, etc, as Oblivion (acrobatics and spell making among other things that constantly pop up in the forums).

That's all I meant.

This feels like my first game in the genre, so I don't really have anything to compare it with. (Besides FO3 & FNV that is) And I don't mind 'missing' those things at all. It's probably that you're used to use it and now you can't so you miss it

I don't really think any TES game improved much since Daggerfall.
But that's just my opinion.

Either way, I think they are all very very good games. The best games ever made.

No worse than with any of the other 4 games IMO.

Exactly. If they wanted it to be a totally seperate game like people like to think Skyrim is, then they should not have added "The Elder Scrolls" to it. Compared to the past Elder Scrolls games, it has definitely taken a new direction, and not a better one at that.

Everyone should have expected it. Because, as someone prior has said, Skyrim is part of a franchise not a stand alone game. Skyrim is not just titled "Skyrim," it is titled "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim" meaning that people (naturally) are going to expect that prior adaptations of the franchise will have some bearing, or a lot of bearing, on the newest incarnation of the series.

Besides jpo, "no one should have expected," then why are you perfectly okay with there still being only Shock, Fire and Frost elements in magic? If Skyrim is not supposed to be based off previous games, or share mechanics, why is this one okay to slide but removing attributes had to be done?

Have you seen the differences between Daggerfall and Morrowind? Talk about changes.

And how about the changes between Morrowind and Oblivion.

Prior to release we were told that there was no spell-making, no skills/stats, no classes, so what were some of you expecting that Oblivion has but Skyrim doesn't?

Oblivion and Skyrim are my only Elder Scrolls games.

Weren't people against things like no spellmaking, no stats, etc prior to release?

What was I expecting to be kept from Oblivion that Skyrim doesn't have? Reputation system, Speechcraft being largely what it was in Oblivion with a new form of haggling and Disposition.

That's right... and if you are going to remove things a lot of people generally like, the things you replace them with should be "teh secks".

That did not not happen with Skyrim.


Skyrim would have been a stronger game keeping what was cut. Spellmaking would have prevented Destruction from being unbalanced. Major Skills, Attributes and Birthsigns would permit for specialization at the start of the game for roleplaying, using the "play what you are" function and stones to balance bad choices.

They dropped the 100lb ball right on are feet and laughed in are face.

Yes, they made it less of an RPG for the consolers. The next version they will add auto aim, auto jump, one key for three actions and auto follow the quest arrow and call it an improvement.

No, I could not disagree more with that sentiment. I think the game is fantastic.

Also, I would like to congratulate the OP for coming up with such an original idea for a new thread.

Yes and no.

It's nowhere near as good as it could have been and I consider it worse than the previous games in the series, but it's still good. "Dropping the ball" kind of implies it's a terrible game and a complete failure - which just isn't true.

It seems to me that a lot of us like the things that were in he first TES game we played....other than Arena.
But we also should realize that Bethesda has tried some crazy new stuff in each of their games. Skyrim isn't any different in that respect. Some stuff was great, some good, and some just blew.
But it's kind of what I was expecting I guess.


So back to the OP...

I still don't feel Bethesda "dropped the ball"...The differences in the games didn't ruin anything for me, they just changed things.

I guess all of you who don't like Skyrim can hold on to this....in 5 or so years, TES VI won't be anything like Skyrim.
But come back to the forums then and see all the players complaining about that. You'll be amazed.

nah no balls drop

Yes they definitely dropped the ball. "Dropping the ball" doesn't imply complete failure. Just some failure. I like the new perk tree system to some extent but I still prefer the attributes system.

They dropped the ball when they omitted Acrobatics, Athletics, and Hand to Hand skills.

They also dropped teh ball when they omitted the levitation spell.

No, the pie chart in Oblivion was terrible in my opinion, I am glad that is gone. Unfortunately with that gone Disposition is pretty much gone as well. Current Speechcraft is shallow, very, very shallow.

As a designer I am sort of getting tired of "accepting what we are given" if the game removes a lot of what made previous titles great, fun or at least followed "tradition."

Removing stats and simplifying Skyrim the way that it is reflects perfectly what Bungie did with Halo Reach in relation to the Halo series, which in Reach players no longer start symmetrically equal thanks to Armor Abilities, and for Halo that's a big change.

I hated Oblivion's pie chart as well. But they could have done something similar to Morrowind's system. I got a kick out of taunting people into attacking me and getting no bounty for killing them.

Judging by how popular the game is no they did not drop the ball,but just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good point and case Justin Bieber.

I'm glad they threw out acrobatics. I'm not as upset about throwing out Spell Making as I am barely having any decent amount of interesting spells.

But jumping 30 ft in the air around everywhere would break the knitty-gritty, realistic-looking immersion of Skyrim.